Asset Turnover measures how quickly a company turns over its asset through sales. It is calculated as Revenue divided by Average Total Assets. Harte-Hanks Inc's Revenue for the three months ended in Dec. 2014 was $146.5 Mil. Harte-Hanks Inc's Average Total Assets for the quarter that ended in Dec. 2014 was $644.2 Mil. Therefore, Harte-Hanks Inc's asset turnover for the quarter that ended in Dec. 2014 was 0.23.

* All numbers are in millions except for per share data and ratio. All numbers are in their own currency.

Companies with low profit margins tend to have high asset turnover, while those with high profit margins have low asset turnover. Companies in the retail industry tend to have a very high turnover ratio.

Explanation

Asset Turnover is linked to Return on Equity (ROE) through Du Pont Formula.

Note: The Net Income data used here is four times the quarterly (Dec. 2014) net income data. The Revenue data used here is four times the quarterly (Dec. 2014) revenue data.

* All numbers are in millions except for per share data and ratio. All numbers are in their own currency.

Be Aware

In the article Joining The Dark Side: Pirates, Spies and Short Sellers, James Montier reported that In their US sample covering the period 1968-2003, Cooper et al find that firms with low asset growth outperformed firms with high asset growth by an astounding 20% p.a. equally weighted. Even when controlling for market, size and style, low asset growth firms outperformed high asset growth firms by 13% p.a. Therefore a company with fast asset growth may underperform.

Therefore, it is a good sign if a company's asset turnover is consistent or even increases. If a company's asset grows faster than sales, its asset turnover will decline, which can be a warning sign.

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